Emmanuel Petit has claimed he was asked what position he played by his coach at Barcelona just after he had won Euro 2000 with France.
Petit, 45, left Arsenal to join Barca in a €12 million move following France's triumph over Italy in the Euro 2000 final, which added the continental crown to France's 1998 World Cup win, a triumph that had been sealed with Petit scoring in the final.
However, the midfielder said that during a preseason tournament in Amsterdam, newly appointed Barca coach Lorenzo Serra Ferrer still had to ask the club's new arrival -- in front of all his new teammates -- about his position.
Cet entraîneur du Barça qui ne connaissait pas le poste de Manu Petit : "Il se foutait de ma gueule" �� #LeVesitaire pic.twitter.com/ui99ZxMojX
- SFR Sport (@SFR_Sport) September 15, 2016
"Richard [Dutruel] was translating and he was translating normally when he suddenly stopped and after five minutes he turned to me and I saw 'Mayday, Mayday' flashing in his eyes," Petit said on SFRSport's "Le Vestiaire" programme.
"He told me, 'The coach wants to know in which position you play.' We'd just finished the Euro. I looked at the coach, looked at Richard, and said, 'Is he joking?' Richard replied, 'He's not joking.'
"So, I said to him, 'I want you to ask him where he has been for the last two years. Has he been kidnapped? Was he in the jungle where there was no TV?'
"The bloke was taking the piss out of me."
Petit, who won the Premier League and FA Cup with Arsenal in the 1997-98 season, left the Camp Nou after just a season, returning to London to join Chelsea.